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Objectives: This final chapter discusses the key instruments of electronic measurement with special emphasis on the most versatile instrument of electronic measurement—the cathode-ray oscilloscope (CRO). The objective of this book will remain unrealized without a discussion on the CRO. The chapter begins with the details of construction of the CRO, and proceeds to examine the active and passive mode input–output waveforms for filter circuits and lead-lag network delay. This will be followed by a detailed study of the dual beam CRO and its uses in op-amp circuit integrator, differentiator, inverting and non-inverting circuits, comparative waveform study, and accurate measurement with impeccable visual display. In addition to the CRO, the chapter also examines the sweep frequency generator, the function generator, the sine wave generator, the square wave generator and the AF signal generator.

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INTRODUCTION: The cathode-ray oscilloscope (CRO) is a multipurpose display instrument used for the observation, measurement, and analysis of waveforms by plotting amplitude along y-axis and time along x-axis. CRO is generally an x-y plotter; on a single screen it can display different signals applied to different channels. It can measure amplitude, frequencies and phase shift of various signals. Many physical quantities like temperature, pressure and strain can be converted into electrical signals by the use of transducers, and the signals can be displayed on the CRO. A moving luminous spot over the screen displays the signal. CROs are used to study waveforms, and other time-varying phenomena from very low to very high frequencies. The central unit of the oscilloscope is the cathode- ray tube (CRT), and the remaining part of the CRO consists of the circuitry required to operate the cathode-ray tube.

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CATHODE-RAY TUBE: The electron gun or electron emitter, the deflecting system and the fluorescent screen are the three major components of a general purpose CRT. A detailed diagram of the cathode-ray oscilloscope is given in Fig

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Electron Gun: In the electron gun of the CRT, electrons are emitted, converted into a sharp beam and focused upon the fluorescent screen. The electron beam consists of an indirectly heated cathode, a control grid, an accelerating electrode and a focusing anode. The electrodes are connected to the base pins. The cathode emitting the electrons is surrounded by a control grid with a fine hole at its centre. The accelerated electron beam passes through the fine hole. The negative voltage at the control grid controls the flow of electrons in the electron beam, and consequently, the brightness of the spot on the CRO screen is controlled.

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Deflection Systems: Electrostatic deflection of an electron beam is used in a general purpose oscilloscope. The deflecting system consists of a pair of horizontal and vertical deflecting plates. Let us consider two parallel vertical deflecting plates P1 and P2. The beam is focused at point O on the screen in the absence of a deflecting plate voltage. If a positive voltage is applied to plate P1 with respect to plate P2, the negatively charged electrons are attracted towards the positive plate P1, and these electrons will come to focus at point Y1 on the fluorescent screen.

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Deflection Systems: The deflection is proportional to the deflecting voltage between the plates. If the polarity of the deflecting voltage is reversed, the spot appears at the point Y2, as shown in Fig. 14-3(a).

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Deflection Systems: To deflect the beam horizontally, an alternating voltage is applied to the horizontal deflecting plates and the spot on the screen horizontally, as shown in Fig. 14-3(b). The electrons will focus at point X2. By changing the polarity of voltage, the beam will focus at point X1. Thus, the horizontal movement is controlled along X1OX2 line.

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Spot Beam Deflection Sensitivity:

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Electrostatic Deflection:

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Fluorescent Screen: Phosphor is used as screen material on the inner surface of a CRT. Phosphor absorbs the energy of the incident electrons. The spot of light is produced on the screen where the electron beam hits. The bombarding electrons striking the screen, release secondary emission electrons. These electrons are collected or trapped by an aqueous solution of graphite called “Aquadag” which is connected to the second anode. Collection of the secondary electrons is necessary to keep the screen in a state of electrical equilibrium. The type of phosphor used, determines the color of the light spot. The brightest available phosphor isotope, P31, produces yellow–green light with relative luminance of 99.99%.

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Display waveform on the screen: Figure 14-5(a) shows a sine wave applied to vertical deflecting plates and a repetitive ramp or saw-tooth applied to the horizontal plates. The ramp waveform at the horizontal plates causes the electron beam to be deflected horizontally across the screen. If the waveforms are perfectly synchronized then the exact sine wave applied to the vertical display appears on the CRO display screen.

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Triangular waveform: Similarly the display of the triangular waveform is as shown in Fig. 14-5(b).

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TIME-BASE GENERATORS: The CRO is used to display a waveform that varies as a function of time. If the wave form is to be accurately reproduced, the beam should have a constant horizontal velocity. As the beam velocity is a function of the deflecting voltage, the deflecting voltage must increase linearly with time. A voltage with such characteristics is called a ramp voltage. If the voltage decreases rapidly to zero—with the waveform repeatedly produced, as shown in Fig. 14-6—we observe a pattern which is generally called a saw-tooth waveform. The time taken to return to its initial value is known as flyback or return time.

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Simple saw-tooth generator & associated waveforms: The circuit shown in Fig. 14-7(a) is a simple sweep circuit, in which the capacitor C charges through the resistor R. The capacitor discharges periodically through the transistor T1, which causes the waveform shown in Fig. 14-7(b) to appear across the capacitor. The signal voltage, Vi which must be applied to the base of the transistor to turn it ON for short time intervals is also shown in Fig. 14-7(b).

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Time-base generator using UJT: The continuous sweep CRO uses the UJT as a time-base generator. When power is first applied to the UJT, it is in the OFF state and CT changes exponentially through RT. The UJT emitter voltage VE rises towards VBB and VE reaches the plate voltage VP. The emitter-to-base diode becomes forward biased and the UJT triggers ON. This provides a low resistance discharge path and the capacitor discharges rapidly. When the emitter voltage VE reaches the minimum value rapidly, the UJT goes OFF. The capacitor recharges and the cycles repeat. To improve the sweep linearity, two separate voltage supplies are used; a low voltage supply for the UJT and a high voltage supply for the RTCT circuit. This circuit is as shown in Fig. 14-7(c). RT is used for continuous control of frequency within a range and CT is varied or changed in steps. They are sometimes known as timing resistor and timing capacitor.

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Oscilloscope Amplifiers: The purpose of an oscilloscope is to produce a faithful representation of the signals applied to its input terminals. Considerable attention has to be paid to the design of these amplifiers for this purpose. The oscillographic amplifiers can be classified into two major categories. (i) AC-coupled amplifiers (ii) DC-coupled amplifiers The low-cost oscilloscopes generally use ac-coupled amplifiers. The ac amplifiers, used in oscilloscopes, are required for laboratory purposes. The dc-coupled amplifiers are quite expensive. They offer the advantage of responding to dc voltages, so it is possible to measure dc voltages as pure signals and ac signals superimposed upon the dc signals. DC-coupled amplifiers have another advantage. They eliminate the problems of low-frequency phase shift and waveform distortion while observing low-frequency pulse train. The amplifiers can be classified according to bandwidth use also: (i) Narrow-bandwidth amplifiers (ii) Broad-bandwidth amplifiers

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Vertical Amplifiers: Vertical amplifiers determines the sensitivity and bandwidth of an oscilloscope. Sensitivity, which is expressed in terms of V/cm of vertical deflection at the mid-band frequency. The gain of the vertical amplifier determines the smallest signal that the oscilloscope can satisfactorily measure by reproducing it on the CRT screen. The sensitivity of an oscilloscope is directly proportional to the gain of the vertical amplifier. So, as the gain increases the sensitivity also increases. The vertical sensitivity measures how much the electron beam will be deflected for a specified input signal. The CRT screen is covered with a plastic grid pattern called a graticule. The spacing between the grids lines is typically 10 mm. Vertical sensitivity is generally expressed in volts per division. The vertical sensitivity of an oscilloscope measures the smallest deflection factor that can be selected with the rotary switch.

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Frequency response: The bandwidth of an oscilloscope detects the range of frequencies that can be accurately reproduced on the CRT screen. The greater the bandwidth, the wider is the range of observed frequencies. The bandwidth of an oscilloscope is the range of frequencies over which the gain of the vertical amplifier stays within 3 db of the mid-band frequency gain, as shown in Fig Rise time is defined as the time required for the edge to rise from 10–90% of its maximum amplitude. An approximate relation is given as follows:

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MEASUREMENTS USING THE CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOSCOPE: 1) Measurement of Frequency:

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TYPES OF THE CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOSCOPES: The categorization of CROs is done on the basis of whether they are digital or analog. Digital CROs can be further classified as storage oscilloscopes. 1. Analog CRO: In an analog CRO, the amplitude, phase and frequency are measured from the displayed waveform, through direct manual reading. 2. Digital CRO: A digital CRO offers digital read-out of signal information, i.e., the time, voltage or frequency along with signal display. It consists of an electronic counter along with the main body of the CRO. 3. Storage CRO: A storage CRO retains the display up to a substantial amount of time after the first trace has appeared on the screen. The storage CRO is also useful for the display of waveforms of low-frequency signals. 4. Dual-Beam CRO: In the dual-beam CRO two electron beams fall on a single CRT. The dual-gun CRT generates two different beams. These two beams produce two spots of light on the CRT screen which make the simultaneous observation of two different signal waveforms possible. The comparison of input and its corresponding output becomes easier using the dual-beam CRO.

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SWEEP FREQUENCY GENERATOR: A sweep frequency generator is a signal generator which can automatically vary its frequency smoothly and continuously over an entire frequency range. Figure shows the basic block diagram of a sweep frequency generator. The sweep frequency generator has the ramp generator and the voltage-tuned oscillator as its basic components.

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SINE WAVE GENERATOR: A sine wave is produced by converting a triangular wave, applying proper circuits. The triangular wave is produced by employing an integrator and a Schmitt trigger circuit. This triangular wave is then converted to a sine wave using the diode loading circuit,as shown in Fig Resistors R1 and R2 behave as the voltage divider. When VR2 exceeds V1, the diode D1 becomes forward- biased. There is more attenuation of the output voltage levels above V1 than levels below V1. With the presence of the diode D1 and resistor R3 in the circuit, the output voltage rises less steeply. The output voltage falls below V1 and the diode stops conducting, as it is in reverse-bias. The circuit behaves as a simple voltage-divider circuit. This is also true for the negative half-cycle of the input Vi. If R3 is carefully chosen to be the same as R4, the negative and the positive cycles of the output voltage will be the same. The output is an approximate sine wave.

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SINE WAVE GENERATOR: The approximation may be further improved by employing a six-level diode loading circuit, as shown in Fig (a).

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SINE WAVE GENERATOR: The circuit is adjusted by comparing a 1 kHz sine wave and the output of the triangular/sine wave converter on a dual-track CRO. R1, R2, R3 and the peak amplitude of Ei are adjusted in sequence for the best sinusoidal shape.

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CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF SINE WAVE GENERATOR:

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SQUARE WAVE GENERATOR A square wave can be most easily obtained from an operational amplifier astable multi-vibrator. An astable multi-vibrator has no stable state—the output oscillates continuously between high and low states. In Fig , the block comprising the op-amp, resistors R2 and R3 constitutes a Schmitt trigger circuit. The capacitor C1 gets charged through the resistor R1. When the voltage of the capacitor reaches the upper trigger point of the Schmitt trigger circuit, the output of the op-amp switches to output low. This is because the Schmitt trigger is a non-inverting type. Now, when the op-amp output is low, the capacitor C1 starts getting discharged.

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SQUARE WAVE GENERATOR: As the capacitor discharges and the capacitor voltage reaches the lower trigger point of the Schmitt trigger, the output of the op-amp switches back to the output high state. The capacitor charges through the resistor again and the next cycle begins. The process is repetitive and produces a square wave at the output. The frequency of the output square wave depends on the time taken by the capacitor to get charged and discharged when the capacitor voltage varies from UTP (upper trigger point) and LTP (lower trigger point).

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AF SIGNAL GENERATOR:

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POINTS TO REMEMBER: 1. CRO is used to study waveforms. 2. CRT is the main component of a CRO. 3. Prosperous P31 is used for the fluorescent screen of a CRO. 4. A CRO has the following components: (a) Electron gun (b) Deflecting system (c) Florescent screen 5. Lissajous figures are used to measure frequency and phase of the waves under study. 6. A time-base generator produces saw-tooth voltage. 7. An oscilloscope amplifier is used to provide a faithful representation of input signal applied to its input terminals.